NOTES for Eze 40:1-49
It is hard to say how much time elapsed between Ezekiel’s prophecy of God’s victory in the battle against evil, when the prophet announced to the people their coming return, and the next prophecy. Probably several years, during which his listeners were most likely waiting for the promise to be fulfilled. But, as the Lord Jesus Christ tells His disciples, it is not for us to know the times and seasons that God has fixed by His own authority. Ezekiel says not a word about this, nor does he even hint at it. Even on the sorrowful anniversary marking twenty-five years of exile, when the question of timing naturally arises, this is not what occupies the prophet’s attention. In those days, his heart turns to the Lord, and the Lord grants him his last great vision.
As at the beginning of the book, the prophet tries to describe what has been revealed to him, and his words amount to an almost visible picture. In this vision the Lord reveals to the prophet the coming Kingdom of God, and at its centre is what matters most, what fills the heart of the prophet himself and of all his listeners and readers with awe: a new Temple. From a high mountain, almost from a bird’s-eye view, the prophet sees this wonder. It is characteristic that the vast majority of people in every generation are convinced that this is precisely God’s ‘point of view’ on our world: from an unreachable height, the Almighty gazes upon the work of His hands. Now Ezekiel is, as it were, placed at this vantage point and can survey from it the future hidden from mortals. Just as a lookout, spotting the longed-for land on the horizon, raises his voice to announce it to the whole ship, so the prophet describes with delight the Temple he has seen.
What awaits us is an agonising question, and the course of history makes it neither easier nor clearer. Where is the world going, disfigured as it is by human cruelty and self-interest? Is there hope for a perishing humanity? Like most of the prophets, Ezekiel apprehends the answer in spirit, and the very promise of God’s victory and of the Kingdom of the age to come bears witness to its divine origin: such optimism does not arise from human experience. Thus the very fact that there will be a new Temple becomes a momentous event in the spiritual life of the Israelite captives. From this moment, all life in captivity acquires meaning: the exiles have something to await and something to hope for. Without this prophecy of Ezekiel, even the call to return that Second Isaiah would proclaim a few years later would have been impossible.
In the description of the new Temple itself, which occupies three chapters, several aspects are worth noting. A mysterious man, gleaming like bronze, measures every detail of the Temple. In his hands are a linen cord and a measuring reed — ordinary builders’ tools in antiquity, which lend the account a profound meaning. In the Bible, they are above all symbols of God’s Wisdom, which sets the measure of the earth. Addressing Job, the Lord cries out from the storm: ‘Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell Me, if you know. Who determined its measurements, if you know? Or who stretched a line upon it?’ (Job 38:4–5). The same measure and cord are present in Ezekiel’s vision. Unlike Solomon’s Temple, built after the pattern of ancient Canaanite sanctuaries, unlike even the Second Temple, which Ezra and later Herod sought to arrange according to the measure indicated by Ezekiel, the future Temple that the prophet himself sees is built according to the measure of Divine Wisdom. It is not human efforts but the Creator’s Wisdom that builds it for people. This detail is precisely what makes the prophet’s vision more than a foreseeing of the near future: it is a revelation about the end of time and the goal of history. It is therefore no surprise that the future Temple is more harmonious than Solomon’s Temple and that many features of its design are imbued with profound symbolism.
The reader is also struck by the close link between Ezekiel’s vision and two vitally important biblical texts, the beginning and the end of Sacred History. Ezekiel’s description of the Temple vividly recalls the description of the Tabernacle in which God dwelt among His people in the wilderness. This description, which takes up a considerable part of the Pentateuch, is striking in its abundance of detail and forms an essential part of the Mosaic covenant. Just as God’s presence in the Tabernacle was the meaning of the Sinai covenant, so the meaning of Ezekiel’s new Temple lies in God’s presence among people. Both the Tabernacle in the Pentateuch and the new Temple in the book of Ezekiel become signs of the Covenant with God. And, of course, we cannot help recalling that another prophet and seer, John the Evangelist and Theologian, describes the New Jerusalem. At the very end of Revelation, John speaks of the city and of the Angel who measures it with a reed, exactly as in Ezekiel’s vision. Significantly, whereas Ezekiel sees, in essence, only a drawing — one is tempted to say a black-and-white one — John’s description sparkles with the brightest colours of every precious stone. Knowing Ezekiel’s text very well, John the Evangelist says of the New Jerusalem: ‘I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God Almighty is its temple.’ These words express the central meaning of both visions.